The Necklace
by NotesfromaClassroom
Summary: Spoiler alert: A three-chapter story based on the recent trailers, interviews, and clip for "Star Trek Beyond." This tells the backstory of the necklace Uhura wears in "Star Trek Beyond." Reference to character death and some spoilers, so proceed with caution!
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

 **Disclaimer: Just playing here. No money in sight!**

As soon as he sees the box, Spock knows what it means.

"For you, Commander," the ensign says, holding out a standard Starfleet shipping parcel barely larger than his palm. The ensign salutes smartly before exiting the bridge but Spock pays no attention.

He's not the only one on the bridge to have a delivery. Almost the minute the _Enterprise_ docked at _Starbase Yorktown_ , ten months of delayed mail was brought aboard. Most of the crew are picking up their packages at the ship's sorting office next to the main transporter, but the chief supply officer has dispatched his staff to hand deliver mail to the crew on alpha shift, a concession to the eagerness for physical contact with home.

Out of reflex, Spock looks over at Nyota's comm station, but for the past month she's requested the delta shift instead.

At his navigation station, Sulu opens a flimplast envelope and removes a small, flat package.

"Finally!" he says, grinning. "I ordered these seeds last spring."

Chekov, too, holds an envelope, this one smooth and white and old-fashioned, a vestige of a time gone by when letters were routinely written on cotton or wooden fiber paper and physically transported across wide distances from writer to reader. From the look on his face, the young helmsman is distraught about the contents. Unwelcome news, undoubtedly.

 _As most news is._

Atypical for Spock to have such a morbid thought. More evidence that his control is slipping. Despite increasing his meditation time, for the past few weeks Spock has been—has felt—unsettled.

"We all feel it," Dr. McCoy said when Spock stopped by sickbay last week with a rare headache that persisted despite his best efforts at pain suppression. "By the time we get to _Yorktown_ , we will have been on the road 960 days straight."

"966," Spock said, "though _on the road_ is an inaccurate characterization."

McCoy pursed his lips and pressed a hypospray to Spock's neck. "On the road, out at sea, whatever you want to call it, we all need a break."

Spock sets the unopened shipping parcel to the side and turns his attention back to the data scrolling by on his screen. Requests for extended leave from two crew members, a manifest of weapons materiel, the results of a scheduled scan of the water recycler…welcome distractions as he waits for his replacement at the end of his shift.

The doctor's reassurance notwithstanding, Spock is certain that what he is feeling is more than the normal exhaustion and tension the rest of the crew exhibits. Not a premonition but something close, like watching a storm gathering on the horizon and knowing with absolute certainty that he can't outrun it.

"What is that?"

Nyota greets him with the question as soon as he enters their quarters.

Recognizing his biometric signature, the room sensor turns up the heat and dims the light a quarter measure. Spock crosses the sitting area and places the box on the desk.

"From Selek," he says simply. Behind him he hears Nyota let out a sigh.

"Oh," she says, drawing close, her fingers drifting to his. "I'm sorry."

He's been expecting the package, of course. The last transmission from New Vulcan was 23 days ago, a hazy recorded vid of Selek—the name his counterpart from another universe has taken—telling him to expect it. It was also Selek's farewell.

"The healers have assured me," Selek said on the screen, his voice wavering with discernible emotion, "that there is no further treatment. Do not grieve, Spock. I have been more fortunate than most. My friendships and work have given me meaning in ways I could never have anticipated in my early years. My hope for you is that you also live a long and prosperous and happy life."

Selek's slight emphasis on the word _happy_ startled Spock. From a Vulcan, such a comment was…unconventional. Spock blinked and replayed that part of the vid again.

"…a long and prosperous and happy life. And now I must ask your indulgence as I tell you something I have never told anyone before. Upon my death, you will receive the only thing of value I own. It belonged to my mother and I have carried it with me since her death years ago. At one time I was ashamed to admit such sentimentality and attachment to a material object, but no more. It has served as a talisman for me, and perhaps it will mean something to you as well."

Selek's craggy face peered from the vid and his hand lifted into the _ta'al._

Then the vid went black.

When Nyota watched it, she was indignant.

"He's not that old! Why can't they find a cure!"

Spock was as baffled as she was. Selek had spoken of his illness before but in a circumspect way, implying that it was nothing serious. Certainly some Vulcans were dying much younger than expected, victims of what was being called _kahl-pol lak-tra_ , or heart sadness.

"Vulcan PTSD," McCoy quipped once when Spock asked him what he knew about the research. "They just can't cope with what has happened."

At the time Spock had been irritated at McCoy's easy conflation of Vulcan and human response to trauma. For the Vulcans who lost family and clans in the genocide, part of themselves were lost, too—not just metaphorically, the way humans talked about heartbreak, but actual loss of joined self. The uptick in unexplained and unexpected deaths among the survivors was not a surprise. What was a surprise was that so many of them were doing as well as they were.

His father, for instance, who felt the loss of his wife keenly but was driven by the demands of rebuilding the colony on New Vulcan.

Selek had been busy there, too, and until recently, healthy. Or so Spock assumed. The older man didn't avoid him, exactly, but the few times that they were together, Spock had the sense that Selek weighed his words and censored his responses, careful not to unduly influence him. It was a thoughtful gesture, and one that made Spock feel—if not sad, then wistful.

"Are you going to open it?" Nyota unhooks their fingers and Spock slides open the delivery parcel. Inside is another box: small, hinged, and made from a lustrous black stone. Spock rubs his thumb across the Vulcan sigil carved on the top and it springs open.

"A necklace," Nyota says. "It's beautiful."

Spock lifts the silver chain from the box and holds up a light blue pendant. Turquoise? The light catches the surface and Spock can make out bright striations that appear to flicker. Not turquoise, then, nor any Earth rock.

"He said it belonged to his mother?"

Spock nods and slips the necklace back into the small black box. He cups his hand around it and is surprised at the heft and warmth of it. Remarkable— _fascinating_ —that Selek still has it.

 _Had_ it _._

Without consciously deciding to, he slides the box into his pocket. When he looks up, Nyota is watching him.

"Are we still meeting your father for a meal?"

An odd thing to ask. The meal with Sarek has been planned since they knew for certain their arrival date. Sarek arranged his own travel plans to put him here at the _Yorktown_ on a routine trip from New Vulcan back to Earth. Everything was settled weeks ago, before Spock and Nyota decided that working separate shifts might help dissipate some of the friction between them. Too much time spent together, she said. Too little time spent apart, he thought.

Perhaps Selek's impending death had weighed on him more than he was aware. Or perhaps—and this was something he had hardly allowed himself to consider—he and Selek moved through the universe in tandem, their katras entwined like two vibrating strings on a _ka'athyra_.

"If you do not wish to attend, you do not have to." His tone is neutral but he sees Nyota's expression darken. She's taken offense though he intended none.

"I told Ensign Sadu I'd relieve her early," she says, moving toward the door. It's a transparent lie and for a moment Spock considers calling her on it.

 _Honesty isn't always the best policy,_ he remembers his mother saying more than once. At the time he had been befuddled, but now her words give him pause. He decides to tell a different truth instead.

"I am glad we will be together this evening," he says before she can exit. Turning to glance at him, her expression softens.

"Me, too," she says.

And then she's gone. Spock stands in the middle of the room with the same sense of dread he'd felt earlier.

He puts his hand into his pocket and curls his fingers around the stone box, searching for an essence of Selek there. Nothing but rock—and the echo of his own heartbeat in his fingertips.

 **Notes: It's probably a fool's errand to write a fanfiction based on trailers and one clip from an upcoming movie, but when the Muse calls, I have to obey.**

 **This is the first chapter of a three-chapter backstory about the necklace that Uhura is wearing in the recently released clip for "Star Trek Beyond." In that clip she says that the necklace belonged to Spock's mother. Yes, I know I have it belonging to the Amanda of TOS, but chapter two sheds more light on that seeming discrepancy. Stay tuned!**

 **As always, a shout out that you are reading keeps me focused! I appreciate hearing from you…and I'm stoked that the new movie is finally within sight!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

 **Disclaimer: Not making money here. Just having a good time!**

Like most Vulcans, Sarek values precision in all things—thinking, speaking, keeping a schedule. Also like most Vulcans, he is a realist who knows that circumstances are often beyond his control. He is rarely flustered—and never visibly so—by unexpected delays, by malfunctioning equipment, by a sudden change of plans.

"Just once I'd like to hear you yell at some pokey transit driver," Amanda said one time, only half teasing. Yet they both knew that his equanimity was part sham when the stakes were high enough. When he was ambassador to Earth he occasionally stepped away from a fraught discussion to avoid revealing his anger at a recalcitrant or unreasonable negotiator.

"I would have told him to his face he is an idiot!" Amanda said when he recounted his day as they lay in bed together at night.

"I know you would," he said, reaching for her hand. "I wish I had your courage."

He knew she thought he was being facetious but he meant what he said. Amanda Grayson was the bravest person he knew.

How many other humans had married Vulcans, had moved off-planet and raised a family on an unfamiliar—and frankly inhospitable—world?

She was fierce in other ways, too—a tireless advocate for children, a gifted educator, an outspoken critic of injustice when she saw it.

Sarek sits ramrod straight on the second row seat in the tender ferrying passengers from the large—and late—public transport from New Vulcan to _Starbase Yorktown_ —and stifles his impatience the way Amanda would not have. An ion storm had kept them from traveling at maximum speed after leaving the colony, and now Sarek watches out the window of the tender as it sidles up to the airlock on the starbase and uniformed crew scramble to connect the cables.

Spock will be annoyed at the delay. The last time they spoke when they arranged this meeting, his son had not bothered to hide his irritation with his father. Since Amanda's death they have reached something of a rapprochement, or at least Sarek thought they had. Perhaps Spock's irritation is the result of the stress of the _Enterprise's_ deep space mission. He'll know more when he sees him in person. Dinner should be instructive.

The restaurant is two levels up from the airlock and Sarek elects to take the stairs rather than wait for the lift. His healer would not approve, not until the heart flutter he's developed is better controlled. He starts up the wide steps and pauses on the landing to catch his breath.

There ahead of him at the entrance to the restaurant are Spock and the lieutenant. They are facing each other and do not see him, and for a moment he observes their body language.

Lieutenant Uhura is in uniform, her arms crossed, her chin dipped down. Spock wears a loose Vulcan tunic under a fitted jacket, the kind of civilian clothes Sarek has seen him wear when he's home on leave. He's speaking too softly for Sarek to make out the words but he's gesturing with one hand, his other hand in his jacket pocket.

Neither Spock nor the lieutenant is smiling. Both stand angled away from each other.

A quarrel? Or perhaps Spock is difficult not just with his father.

Taking another deep breath, Sarek climbs the rest of the stairs.

"Father," Spock says, moving toward him. The lieutenant smiles and uncrosses her arms.

"My apologies for being late," Sarek says, but before he can say more, the lieutenant touches his forearm lightly and says, "It's quite alright. We just arrived, too."

Perhaps that was the reason for the discord he witnessed. He follows them into the restaurant and they settle at a table near a large window overlooking the domed interior of the starbase. Situated on the edge of Federation space, the starbase is more transportation hub than anything else. Sarek argued long and hard—and ultimately futilely—when it was built that it should house a unified military base staffed by Andorians, Vulcans, and humans. To his disappointment, the Vulcan leadership vetoed the idea. So far Sarek's worry seems unfounded. Looking around at the busy foot traffic of people from multiple worlds, he hopes he continues to be proven wrong about the dangers of the frontier.

A server comes and goes with bottles of water and bowls of vegetables. From long habit with humans, Sarek intersperses eating with conversation. He asks the lieutenant about her family and listens closely to the homesick tone in her voice. Spock, too, seems subdued.

At last the meal is cleared away and Sarek debates how to broach the real reason for his visit.

Twice before he's suggested that Spock leave Starfleet and come to New Vulcan to help in the reconstruction efforts. Each time Spock dismissed him without discussion. This time Sarek comes with a message from the High Council—and an offer of a position for his son. It's unprecedented that a young person is offered such an influential position, but then, these are unprecedented times.

Before he can put his thoughts to words, Spock pulls a small box from his pocket and places it between them on the table.

"Selek sent this to me," he says, his voice wavering. "He wanted me to have it upon his death."

Sarek has to call upon a deep measure of control not to reveal his distress.

Over the past two years he has spent more time with Selek than he has with his own son—or he has spent more time with the older, wiser, calmer version of his son. Even now he isn't quite sure how to characterize his relationship with the older man. As father to son? Or as two strangers who just happen to have Spock in common? They spoke of it once and then chose to ignore it, Selek busy with organizing the High Council and allocating resources, Sarek continuing his work as liaison between Earth and New Vulcan.

That Spock already knows about Selek's death is a relief. Part of Sarek's uneasiness on the transport was trying to decide how to break the news. His own sense of loss is mitigated by Spock himself—his living, breathing son still available to him. For Spock, however, Selek's death must represent something else, and that gives Sarek pause.

Spock presses the top of the box and it springs open.

"Have you ever seen this?" he asks, pulling out a necklace.

Sarek shivers involuntarily. "How did you get that?"

"I told you. Selek sent it to me. He said it belonged—"

"To Amanda," Sarek says, taking the necklace from Spock. "I gave it to her years ago, before we were married."

"I have never seen it before," Spock counters, an unmistakable note of challenge in his voice. Sarek glances at him briefly and then examines the pendant in his palm.

"Tell me about it," the lieutenant says. "It's lovely."

How to put into words such a story? He starts slowly, describing the young woman he met at the Vulcan embassy, a human cultural aide accepted by no one at first, and certainly not by him.

"I saw no reason to bend to human sensibilities," Sarek says, enjoying the memory of Amanda in those days, eager to help the Vulcans navigate the intricacies of human interactions—chit chat and party etiquette, simple social niceties that at the time had seemed to him like a capitulation of sorts.

"I admit I was not easy to get to know," Sarek says, and for the first time all evening, the lieutenant laughs. Spock, too, looks amused. "Fortunately for me, Spock's mother was persistent. We began sharing conversations and meals together, and soon I realized that we were becoming friends."

He sees the lieutenant and his son exchange glances. A similar story, perhaps, in their past? Spock has never shared much about his relationship with Lieutenant Uhura, though he has not hidden it, either. If Amanda were here, she would have winkled out all the details by now.

"For a time we were parted when I was deployed to an off-world post," Sarek continues. "By then I knew that she and I were…more…than friends. Being without her was—"

He hesitates, searching for the word. Being parted from Amanda—before they were married, even before he had spoken a single word of love to her—was just as it is now.

"It was unbearable," he says. "Unbearable."

For a moment they are silent around the table, and then he says, "I found this stone at a gemcutters in ShiKahr. It is not rare—at least not on Vulcan—but it is the color of your mother's world, and for that reason I had it fitted with a setting and a chain. Of all the gifts I ever gave her, she cherished this one most."

"Because it was the first," the lieutenant says.

"Perhaps," Sarek agrees. "She liked its impracticality, the fact that there was no celebration or occasion for it. Freely given—that's what she said. Proof that even her toughest Vulcan student could learn a thing or two from humans."

Sarek returns the necklace to the box and looks up at Spock.

"You did not see it," Sarek says, "because she wore it hidden. At first it was to avoid drawing attention to our relationship before we were married, and later because she wished to feel its touch. She was wearing it when—"

He stops, unable to say more.

The lieutenant reaches across the table and lets her hand rest on his arm.

"Thank you," she says simply, and Sarek nods.

They leave the restaurant and say their goodbyes outside the door. He's said nothing about the offer from the High Council or his own wishes that Spock consider making a life on the colony. The _Enterprise_ crew will be on leave on _Yorktown_ for a few weeks while the ship is resupplied. If his own transport to Earth weren't leaving tomorrow, he'd try to find time to speak to Spock alone.

He stops his descent down the stairs and looks back in time to see his son and the lieutenant standing at the top of the stairs, facing each other, Spock opening the box and unclasping the necklace. As Sarek watches, Spock leans forward and places the necklace around the lieutenant's neck. The young woman's eyes are shining and she tiptoes up to give his son a lingering kiss. The necklace shines brightly against her red uniform.

Not Amanda's necklace, and yet in the infinite mystery of the universe, it is.

Sarek turns and heads down the stairs. Later there will be time for the hard conversations. Tonight he leaves them to the comfort of each other.

 **Notes: One more chapter. Thanks for letting me know that you are reading and enjoying!**

 **I've written about Amanda and Sarek's romance in other fics. Take a look at my profile for a complete listing.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

 **Disclaimer: Free to good home! Read and enjoy!**

Even with a skeleton crew, the bridge hums with action. Most of the _Enterprise_ junior officers are on their first week of leave on _Starbase Yorktown_ on a scheduled three-week layover for resupplies and repairs, but Nyota volunteered to stay aboard the first week and operate the comm station.

She doesn't mind, really. Spock is here, too, and the captain, and Dr. McCoy wanders through the bridge threatening to pry them loose and force-march them into a transporter.

"You don't need to worry about me," the captain says, laughing. "At 0400 tomorrow I'm walking off this ship with my duffel in my hand. Spock's the one who doesn't know how to relax. Pick on him for a change."

Nyota _feels_ Spock rise to the bait. Seated at the science console, he keeps his gaze on his monitors, but his shoulders are hunched and his breathing is more measured than usual. Before he can answer, Nyota says, "I notice that _you_ are still aboard, Dr. McCoy. What's that old saying? _Physician, heal thyself_?"

McCoy harrumphs loudly. "You're too damn smart for your own good, Lieutenant." Then apparently unwilling to let go of his tease, he raises his voice slightly and says over her, "She's too smart for you, Spock!"

"That was never in question, Doctor."

From his captain's chair, Kirk says, "Touche, Spock. Go away, Bones, and let us work."

Before she turns back to her screen, Nyota glances over at Spock but he's preoccupied with the data streaming across his secondary monitor. No matter. They will have time to talk later. She presses her fingers to her uniform and feels the pendant hidden under the cloth.

Turning back to her own monitor, she sees that a message queue has formed. Most are department updates requiring nothing more than a routing channel, but two are from New Vulcan for Spock, both tagged private and urgent. Her heart hammers in her ears.

These aren't the first messages he's received this week from New Vulcan. Sarek is back on Earth by now, so they aren't from him. If Spock knows anyone else on the colony world, he's never mentioned it to her.

"Commander? For you." Her left hand on the audio receiver in her ear, she reaches with her right to a toggle on the comm board. Without a word, Spock taps his screen and begins reading.

Watching him is a temptation, but Nyota feels she is invading his privacy. If she needs to know the contents, he'll tell her when he's ready.

The rest of the shift passes slowly, but at last the replacements arrive and Spock and Nyota leave the bridge together. They make it all the way down the corridor to the aft turbolift before she tilts her head up at him and says, "Well?"

A human might pretend ignorance, but Spock doesn't know how. "You wish to know about the missives from the colony," he says.

"I do. Unless you don't want to tell me." She glances up at his face and is surprised to see his brows knit. He _doesn't_ want to tell her.

The arrival of the lift stops her from asking more, but as soon as it deposits them at their deck and they are alone in the corridor outside their quarters, she says, "Are you…afraid…to tell me?"

Spock stops walking and turns to her, his arms tucked behind his back. His Starfleet pose, she calls it. Professional, military, formal—and unreachable. It catches her off guard.

"You know you can tell me anything," she says. His brows are still knit, his eyes hooded and haunted in a way she hasn't seen since…well, since the loss of his mother.

"Very well," Spock says, lowering his voice as a crew member passes by. "I have been asked to accept a position on the High Council. It would require residence on New Vulcan."

"I don't understand—"

"The High Council is tasked with governing the colony—"

"I know what the Vulcan High Council does!" Her voice is sharper than she intends, a measure of her irritation at Spock's deliberate misdirection. "What does this mean for you? For your career?" And then she adds, "For us?"

To his credit, Spock doesn't look away but continues to meet her gaze. "I am uncertain," he says at last.

"You aren't going to accept it." A question disguised as a statement. She waits for him to agree.

"As I indicated, I am uncertain."

Nyota's knees are suddenly wobbly. Not a metaphor, but a physical reaction that makes her reach out to brace herself against the wall. Spock darts out a hand and steadies her.

They make their way slowly to their quarters, the silence stretching between them. That he would consider walking away from all he's worked for in Starfleet is almost unimaginable, though perhaps it shouldn't be. In the immediate aftermath of the genocide he'd told her he was leaving Starfleet to help establish the colony, but that resolve had lasted less than a day. Selek had counseled him against leaving, Spock told her later. _You can be in two places at once._

Is the loss of Selek behind this new push to get him to join the High Council?

Throughout the rest of the evening they are cross-legged and knee to knee on the floor in the sitting room, their foreheads touching from time to time, quietly talking. No, he doesn't want to leave Starfleet. Yes, he will if duty demands it. The Council's work is critical for the survival of the colony, and if he can be an integral part of it, he will set aside his personal wishes for the greater good.

When she was a small child, Nyota imagined herself in various careers—dancer, teacher, doctor—but once she settled in at Starfleet Academy, she never wavered in her determination to be an explorer. Now she tries to imagine herself planet-bound on a struggling colony, building a home, perhaps raising a family. Hadn't Spock's mother done just that?

Nyota runs her fingers absently over the fabric covering the necklace.

If Spock is willing to leave Starfleet, is she?

"I would not ask that of you," he says softly.

Her sleep is fitful and she's tired during her last shift before their leave begins the next day. Finally she and Spock are free to head to the walkway connecting the _Enterprise_ to _Starbase Yorktown_. Their luggage has been sent ahead on security pallets and will be picked up in the central hub—standard procedure for disembarking crew. From there they will head to the private rooms available for rental on the rim of the starbase.

They walk in silence as the entryway to the starbase looms ahead. Spock's comm chimes once as they approach the security guard and he stops and steps to the side to let people pass him. With a hurried apology, Nyota scurries out of the way of a crewman pushing a wheeled carriage.

"I will be there, Counselor," Spock says into his comm. He flips it shut and returns it to his pocket. He starts to move forward and Nyota plants herself in his path.

"You've made a decision?"

"Nyota—"

"This affects me, too. Don't I have any say-so here?"

To an untrained eye, Spock appears unmoved—but Nyota is not an untrained eye. His very real distress is visible to her in the cant of his head, the timbre of his voice. As angry as she is—as disappointed as she is that he's making this choice—part of her understands it. Spock can no more stand by and let his people suffer than she could.

"I see," she says when he doesn't answer. "And if I offer to come with you? To leave Starfleet and find work on New Vulcan?"

Pure bravado—fueled by fear and anger and adrenaline. She holds her breath, not certain what she wants him to say.

Spock's expression is anguished. "Part of my duties would require—"

And in a flash she realizes what he is saying—that the Council is frantically beating back the very real possibility that they will not survive, that the early deaths and falling birthrate spell the end of Vulcans as a people.

"They want you to marry a Vulcan and have Vulcan children," she says. The lights in the walkway are overly bright and her eyes water.

"It may be…necessary," Spock says. Nyota blinks.

"I see." A beat, and then she murmurs, "I understand."

She doesn't, not really, and she knows as she says it, as she feels something shifting inside her like an anchor coming loose, that she will never understand it, even as she moves forward.

Lifting her chin and swallowing to clear her voice, she tugs at the chain of the necklace under her collar.

"I think you should have this back." She gauges Spock's reaction— _hurt, sorrow_ —and she has a moment of being glad that this isn't easy for him, either. "After all, it belonged to your mother."

She half expects Spock to call her out on the technicality, but he's clearly wounded by her words.

"It is not in the Vulcan custom to receive again that which was given as a gift." His diction is clipped and formal and fraught—and with that, Nyota is ashamed of deliberately inflicting more pain. She stills her hand from removing the necklace and clutches the pendant instead.

She leans forward just as he dips down to meet her, her lips brushing his cheek with a kiss.

She'll cry later, after some of the shock and numbness wear off. And then she'll call her mother and weep some more, and maybe if she can muster the courage, she'll wander out among the crowds of people from all over the frontier worlds and look for a friendly face at a bar for a drink and conversation. Or she'll sit all night looking out the vast windows at the darkness of space and imagine herself out there with her namesakes, the stars, part of a ship and a crew and a mission bigger than herself.

But before then she has to walk away. She wills her feet to move, one in front of the other as she steps away from Spock, the distance between them growing moment by moment, his eyes on her—she is certain—as she disappears into the crowd.

 **Epilogue**

 _It's not stalking if you just happen to be walking behind someone, and it's not eavesdropping if they talk loud enough for you to hear._

Leonard McCoy didn't intend to overhear the conversation between Spock and Lt. Uhura in the walkway but even in this diverse group of travelers, they are a hard couple to miss.

Something's been brewing between them for weeks, something more than the ordinary contrariness of every Vulcan he knows.

He can't make out most of the words, but the tone is clear. _This isn't working out_.

He's no stranger to that aggrieved tone—has delivered it as well as been on the receiving end. Most of the time it was the nail in the coffin of a relationship that was long dead and needed to be laid to rest. His own marriage, for instance, Jocelyn unhappy for years before they finally called it quits.

He isn't so sure about Spock and Uhura, though. There's something there, even now, even as they look at each other with tearful longing, that suggests they will find their way back together. They have before—like an old-fashioned yoyo on a string, approaching and retreating, or like dancers who can't quite agree on the tempo.

Give them some time apart to reconsider what it means to be together.

Lieutenant Uhura kisses Spock on the cheek and walks away. Pivoting around, Spock watches her retreat into the crowd.

"Go after her, you idiot," McCoy mutters under his breath.

He ambles up and waits for Spock to notice him standing there.

"You guys break up? What did you do?"

He grins to signal that he's teasing, expecting Spock to argue that he's mistaken, that they are not, in fact, _breaking up._

When Spock whirls around, McCoy is taken aback by his pallor and the obvious look of misery. He starts to apologize but Spock says, "A typically reductive inquiry, doctor."

And there it is, the proverbial gauntlet thrown down, Spock's voice as sharp-edged as a scalpel. _Bastard._

"You know, Spock, when an Earth girl says _it's me, not you_ , it's definitely you." To add injury to insult, he slaps Spock's arm as he pushes past.

Let him chew on that for awhile. Whatever heartache he's feeling, he deserves to stew in it.

Besides, this is just a bump in the road. He has to admit it; the kids are clearly made for each other.

 **Notes: And that's it...my cobbling together all the hints from interviews, trailers, and the clip of the necklace. I predict that the scene where Uhura offers to give back the necklace comes early in the film and by the end of the movie, and time apart, Bones' assessment that they will find each other again is right. It will be fun to see the REAL story when the movie opens. In the meantime while we wait, I had fun writing this...and I hope you had fun reading it. Let me know!  
**

 **UPDATE: Since I've now seen the movie, I've made two very small tweaks because they were jarring enough to take someone out of the story...I've changed the number of days the Enterprise has been on their mission to the right one...966...and made the stone in the necklace from Vulcan. That fact turns out to be an important plot point in the movie.**


End file.
